


The Night Tears Us Loose

by levendis



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Complicated Relationships, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Masturbation, cuddlecore
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-27
Updated: 2015-12-27
Packaged: 2018-05-09 19:12:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,632
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5551949
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/levendis/pseuds/levendis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She should have known it’d be more complicated than a fade to black. They’ve never been that simple. Post-”The Husbands of River Song”</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Night Tears Us Loose

“So,” River says. “Twenty-four years.”

“Approximately.” The Doctor’s poking at his salad, separating the components into neat little piles.

“In order. On one planet.”

He stops fiddling with the vegetables and cheese (?) cubes, sets his fork down slowly, and stares at her very earnestly. “I’m not going to run. I promise.”

She sighs, smiles. Reaches across the table to put her hand over his, the ring on his finger sharp against her palm. “For some reason, I almost believe you.”

“And we don’t - you don’t need to spend every waking hour with me. Our lives don’t have to grind to a halt. There’s nothing that says we can’t pop off for a quick jaunt in the TARDIS, even.”

“As long as we come back to Darillium before the sun rises,” she says. She squeezes his hand and pulls back.

“Yeah.” His jaw twitches, like he’s thinking about smiling but can’t quite make it happen.

“See, I knew you’d think of a way to cheat fate.”

He gives her that strange, sad half-smile again. “I don’t want to cheat fate. I just - I’m worried you might feel trapped. I know what you’re like.”

“You really don’t,” she says through a mouthful of what she assumes is fish. “But don’t worry, I’ve got plenty of time to teach you.”

 

* * *

The champagne might be getting to her. The scotch might be getting to him. They walk a little unsteadily back to her room, which has been reserved for the past four years.

For a second, she thinks he’s going to follow her in. It’s what he would have done, once. Instead, he stands a careful distance away, posture slightly defensive. An apologetic smile, and the beginnings of a verbal apology - she shushes him, kisses him chastely on the corner of his mouth.

“We’ve got plenty of time,” she says, and closes the door quietly behind her. And then immediately re-opens it.

“I didn’t mean to imply that I expect you to eventually have sex with me,” she says.

Halfway down the corridor, he wheels around, eyebrows up somewhere near his hairline. “Okay.”

“We have time to figure it out, I mean. Figure _us_ out.”

“Right.”

“Til tomorrow, then,” she says, and closes the door again.

 

* * *

She wakes up seven hours later, her room flooded with artificial sunlight. A note slid under the door: THE MARKET @ VENN PLACE, 0900 HRS, BE THERE OR BE SQUARE

It hits her, suddenly. This is her life now. Here, with him. A real life. Not two-days-together-and-see-you-five-years-from-now. They’d made a commitment. Married for who knows how long, and they’d only just now committed. Frankly, she was terrified. It had seemed so simple last night, in front of the Singing Towers, her man by her side. The universe had just about made sense. Now? Now she folds the note and folds it again and tucks it in her pocket, spritzes on a dozen different outfits and none of them seem right. This whole thing, it’s settling down awkwardly on her shoulders.

And it isn’t that her happiness has waned, it’s not that she’s changed her mind. Just that the nitty-gritty details of the situation are somewhat dampening that fairy-tale feeling. The eternal darkness will take some getting used to. And the Doctor, and herself in slow motion, and the banal logistics of twenty-four years in a row. Going to the market together. Day after day after day. For better or for worse.

This feels real in a way nothing about her life with the Doctor ever had. Which isn’t a bad thing. It’s not, absolutely is not a bad thing at all. It’s an ending, a new beginning. One last adventure: the linear world, no shortcuts. Just her and him.

She changes outfits again, a sensible casual ensemble, staring at herself critically in the mirror.

 

* * *

Another day, or later that night, because it’s all the same damn night, he takes her to the local museum. Archaeology, she likes that, she’s an archaeologist. The history of this planet, the things dug out of the dirt, the strata of a civilization. Look, the first example of written language, it’s a grocery list. The second example is a love poem. The third is a declaration of war. There’s a limit, he says, to the variation you can find across cultures. We all boil down to the same concerns. Basically. Barring a few outliers.

It’s easy enough to forget where they are. Easy to look at the Doctor, pinballing between displays, babbling on about everything and nothing, and see the man that he’d been. That dumb toothy grin plastered across his face, the way his arms seem to have a mind of their own. And it hurts, just a bit, when the illusion slips, and she remembers that he isn’t quite the man she fell in love with. That she’ll never see _her_ Doctor again.

It’s a selfish and bitter thought, but she’s been having selfish and bitter thoughts for a while now. In the grand scheme of things, resentment at finding herself having to start so close to the beginning isn’t that bad. She could be planning another murder, after all.

He can sense it, she thinks. Is maybe even expecting her to be disappointed. There’s more than a little self-deprecation in him now. And, damn him, he’s so unfairly understanding. She’s done nothing to deserve it, and she half-hates him for it, tenses up more and more with each concerned glance, every unsubtle hint that he’s not going to swan off and leave her behind.

And despite his constant insistence that he’s here, and isn’t going anywhere, he’s always just beyond her reach. Always ducking from her embrace, always changing the subject. One last night with the love of her life and he won’t touch her. It’s driving her crazy.

It’s a mistake, and she knows that before she does it, and she does it anyway because of course she does: she pounces on him, pins him against the wall. Her hips flush against his, her hands buried in his hair, and she kisses him with everything she’s been carrying around since Manhattan.

He goes limp. He retreats somewhere inside himself. He does not push her away, not physically at least, but he’s as cold and as closed-off as he’s ever been. Shit. _Shit._

“That’s my cue to leave, I think,” she says. And she does, doing her best to keep her pace steady, her shoulders squared and head held high. Never, ever let him see the damage.

(Part of her wants to hear him yelling after her, running after her. He would have, once. He should be running after her, demanding to know what he did wrong, trying to fix everything. But he’s not that man anymore. They wouldn’t be here if he were. They never did happen in the right order, anyway. She should be used to it by now.)

 

* * *

She avoids him for two days, or two whatever-passes-for-days on this planet. He does not attempt to contact her. Empathetic and considerate or a too-familiar sulk. So she calls him - she doesn’t want to seem desperate - he’s her husband, she’s his wife, they’re in love, why is this so _hard._ She calls the number he gave to her. When had he gotten a cell phone? How much, exactly, had she missed?

They meet in a cafe. He says something cryptic about these conversations always happening in cafes, like there’s something inherent in the business model that just leads to this sort of thing.

Something he’s not telling her, that same thing he’s been circling around this whole time. She’ll ask, one of these days. Hours. Whatever.

“We’re both very pushy, aren’t we.” He’s still not great at small-talk.

“Let’s be honest here, I’m much pushier by far.” She’s aiming for flip, doesn’t quite pull it off. She’s not sure why she’s even bothering to put up a front.

“It’s not a competition.” He frowns.

“Are we bantering? I thought you didn’t like banter anymore.”

“I believe this is what’s called a ‘conversation’. Seems strange, I know, but I’ve heard normal people have them all the time.” He tilts precariously back on his chair, arms folded over his chest.

“We’re not normal people. And that’s the problem, isn’t it. I mean, what are we supposed to do? Get jobs, buy a house, settle down into domestic bliss? Are we capable of that?” She doesn’t want to be angry, doesn’t mean for the edge in her voice to be so sharp.

He jerks himself forward, front legs of his chair landing with a thunk. “The only way to find out is to try.”

“I _am_ trying. Pay attention.”

“No. You’re shooting yourself in the foot. Believe me, I know what that looks like. Used to know what that felt like, I think - nevermind, not important. The important thing is you stop being so hard on yourself for making mistakes, for this not going exactly according to plan. I can deal with you being angry at me, but please, please don’t be angry at yourself.”

She narrows her eyes at him, searching his craggy features for something recognizable. The callow boy he’d been. “You’ve changed.”

“So have you.” He grins crookedly, pats her hand. “These things happen, whether we’re ready for them or not.”

 

* * *

He kisses her for the first time in the basement of one of the city’s government buildings. They’d broken in, partially for valid reasons and mostly because, well, they were them. She’d said something about the thrill of trespassing, wink-wink nudge-nudge, with an over-the-top flirty glance at him that she’d meant as a joke. Because he always made that adorable confused/dismayed face at her innuendo. Because she still kind of liked watching him squirm.

Except he doesn’t squirm or look like a baffled puppy or say something tetchy about how come everything needs to be about sex. He just gets very still, and her breath catches in her throat, and then he’s gripping her upper arms and snogging the living daylights out of her.

For about five seconds. Then he breaks off, back of his hand pressed to his mouth, and, oh, shit, he’s crying.

“Sorry,” he says hoarsely, turning his head away.

“Don’t apologize for kissing your wife.” She’s not an expert on comforting anyone, let alone him. Even before all this, she’d never known what to do, what to say, whether she should even acknowledge the cracks in his facade. She’d hug him, if she weren’t terrified of him flinching away.

So she waits for him to pull himself together. And he meets her eyes, finally, gives her a watery smile and an untranslatable eyebrow-wiggle, and he clears his throat, and they move on.

(“You can talk to me, you know,” she says as they crawl through vents. “No sense in hiding from each other, not now.”

“We’ve got twenty-three years worth of time to kill,” he says. “I’m not using up all my conversation topics straight off the bat. Otherwise five years from now we’ll be reduced to discussing the _weather_ , and that is not a fate I would wish upon my worst enemy.”)

 

* * *

Patience is a virtue, sure, and it’s getting easier to embrace. The slow pace of them now, day by day, one foot placed carefully in front of the other. Maybe one day he’ll hold her hand without complaining, maybe the next day he’ll hug back.

But there aren’t really any days, just one incredibly long night. And she’s a woman with needs. _The kind of needs one tends to have at night_ , she tells him, tone of voice leaving little up for debate. She’s certain he’s only pretending not to know what she means.

So he walks her home again, hesitating in front of the door to her room. So she rests her hand on his face, thumb skirting the edge of his mouth. So he takes just enough of a shaky breath for his lips to part, for her thumb to slip inside. And he bolts. So she closes the door just a touch too loudly, and takes matters into her own hands.

She lies on the bed, on top of the crisply tucked-in sheets, and lets all the tension come to the forefront, lets her hand drift between her legs. This has become part of the routine, lately. A loaded moment and him running away and her masturbating furiously in the privacy of her room.

The Doctor in her imagination has been changing, gradually. A little less bow-tie, a little more red velvet. Feels like she’s cheating on him, which is funny because they’ve never been exclusive, and how do you cheat on someone with themselves, anyway? But there’s a twinge, a tug at her conscience. The other kind of twinge is more interesting, though. Her forefinger hard against her clit and a Scottish brogue in her head, growling impossibly dirty things.

It might feel like crossing a line, if they weren’t technically married. Besides, she’s always taken boundaries as more of a suggestion than a hard-and-fast rule. Crossing the line is what she does.

There’s a knock on her door, and really by now she should know better than to ignore it. Or maybe she knows what she’s doing. Putting herself in the right place and the right time, waiting for a plan to unfold. Fingers crossed, metaphorically. Maybe she waits for him to pick the lock.

He only starts a little when he sees her. In her current state of…disarray.

“Who were you thinking of?” he asks, voice entirely too low and gravelly.

She hadn’t expected him to be so quick on the uptake. “Take a wild guess,” she says. She holds his gaze as she clenches her thighs, licks her lips, does everything in her power short of actually saying the words to imply _yes I want you, you idiot._

He grins wolfishly, teeth gleaming in the dim light. Then his face does that thing, that rapid shifting between emotions, settling on something she thinks might be regret. Or that unwarranted self-deprecation, again. “I’m sorry I couldn’t have done this when I was him,” he says. “You deserve better than a broken old man.”

She heaves a sigh, pointedly also heaving her bosom. “You’re broken, I’m broken, it’s the Island of Misfit Toys. Could you please just come over here and fuck me?”

The blush shoots up his neck at record speed, but he comes. Predictably, though, does not do anything more scandalous than cuddle up next to her. Head tucked under her chin, arm across her belly. She resists, barely, the impulse to roll him over and ride him into the mattress.

“Love isn’t a lightning bolt,” he says slowly. “It’s not a fairy-tale. It takes work.”

“That’s very poetic, but all I can think about right now is that stiffy you’re poking me with. Please, Doctor, can’t we stop talking now? For once?”

He snorts, but doesn’t pull away. “Talking is important. Communication. I have - there’s a story I should tell you. Not now, but. Soon, I think.” He tugs her closer, close as two bodies can get without being inside each other. Grip just a little too tight, breath just a touch too uneven.

“We have time,” she whispers. “There’s no rush. I promise. Although I do want to go on record as being deeply sexually frustrated. You berk.” She turns to face him, curls around him, holds him as gently as she can manage. Breathes in, blinks back what couldn’t possibly be tears. She’s happy, you don’t cry when you’re happy.

An ending, a beginning. He huffs out a laugh and relaxes into her embrace. Slowly, and slower still, leaning up to kiss her. It’s all right. They have all night, after all.


End file.
